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Operator
Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the fourth-quarter 2010 Identive Group, Inc. earnings conference call. My name is Francine and I am your coordinator for today.
At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions)
I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today Ms. Darby Dye. Ma'am, you may proceed.
Darby Dye - IR
Thank you. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Speaking on today's call are Ayman Ashour, Chairman and CEO; and Melvin Denton-Thompson, CFO of Identive. The purpose of today's conference call is to supplement the information provided in our press release which was issued earlier today announcing the Company's financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2010.
Before we begin, I would like to remind you that various remarks we make on this call including those about our projected future financial results, economic and market trends and our competitive position constitute forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements and all other statements made on this call that are not historical facts are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially.
The forward-looking statements we make today speak as of today and we do not undertake any obligation to update any such statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after today. Please refer to today's press release, our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009 and subsequent SEC filings for a description of factors that could cause forward-looking statements to differ materially from actual results.
During this conference call, we will also be making reference to non-GAAP results or projections including non-GAAP gross margins, overhead costs, adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP EPS. These non-GAAP measures exclude all or some of the following; acquisition, transition and integration costs; equity-based compensation expense, overhead allocations and amortization and depreciation.
Identive uses these non-GAAP measures internally and believe that they provide a meaningful way for investors to evaluate our operating performance but cautions investors to consider these measures in addition to not as a substitute for nor superior to Identive's consolidated financial results as presented in accordance with GAAP. A complete reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures is included in today's press release which is available on the Investor Relations section at Identive's website.
As a reminder, today's call is also available as a webcast with slides which can be accessed from the Investor Relations section of our website at www.identive-group.com. If you're viewing the webcast, you may enlarge the slides of this presentation by clicking on the magnifying lens in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. I would now like to turn the call over to Ayman Ashour.
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
Good morning and thank you, Darby, and thank you all of you for joining us today. Q4 was another quarter of positive momentum for Identive both in terms of our market position and actual financial performance.
Our sales grew to $27.8 million for the quarter, up significantly year on year and sequentially. We continue to be very active in the US government space and began a significant professional services contract with the Internal Revenue Service or the IRS that signals a first phase of a multiyear project [to form] new access control systems at several hundred IRS facilities throughout the US.
We also completed and shifted several hundred thousand IT secure reader kits for the German government electronic citizen ID program. To date, we have recognized approximately $5.5 million of revenue for this program.
We achieved another record quarter in our transponder business with sequentially higher sales driven by a variety of RFID applications from payment stickers for mobile phones to [seasonal key tickets] to ticketing for transport, amusement parks, etc. as well as tracking in pharmaceutical and other sensitive applications.
The addition of production capacity from our Smartag acquisition completed in late November further boosted sales in our transponder business. Q4 was also strong for our ID integration business in the payment area in Holland and in various consumer, citizen, student and healthcare ID applications in US, Switzerland, Germany and Australia.
Our adjusted EBITDA performance improved across nearly all parts of our business and in Q4 we achieved overall adjusted EBITDA of $2.9 million. We completed the acquisition of Smartag in November for a combination of cash and debt.
Smartag brings us needed additional manufacturing capacity as well as important alliances in the near field communications and strong position in the payment market. Smartag being based in Singapore gives us an important and a really solid entry point into the Southeast Asian region.
Smartag integration has been ongoing and we are expecting to relocate into a new manufacturing facility in the coming months. The acquisition will be accretive to adjusted EBITDA in 2011.
We have had to inject significant cash into Smartag immediately after the acquisition to fund working capital needs which were very low at the time of closing. The deal as you recall was subject to a net asset adjustment, so that additional cash got deducted from the price we have had to pay from the consideration.
During Q4, we also completed a private placement on favorable terms to the group of our common stock on warrants and this resulted in net proceeds of $9.6 million. This will be used to fund future acquisitions, growth activities, integration, etc.
After accounting for the working capital and the cash used for the Smartag deal, we ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $10.8 million compared to $6.2 million at the end of Q3. Our reported Q4 revenues as you would have noticed in the press release reflected our decision to move approximately $2.8 million of revenue from Q3 into Q4.
During Q3 we shipped several hundred thousand German electronic ID programs to a major technology publication in Germany which were then shipped onto the readers or the subscribers of the magazine. The shipments to the subscribers did not actually occur in Q3.
Therefore our criteria for recognizing the revenue fully for Q3 were not met but it was only met in Q4. So, as a result, we have restated our Q3 revenues to $2.8 million lower than previously reported with a corresponding impact on operating profit and net income.
This obviously boosted our Q4 performance. But even without the additional Q4 performance of the $2.8 million, we still had significant sales growth of 115% on a Q4 against last year's Q4 with approximately 20% of organic growth. So we applied the -- so overall we feel pretty good about the quarter.
I just want to move on now to take a look at 2010 as a whole. 2010 was our first year at Identive. So it was truly a transformative year for us.
We completed significant integration work between SCM and Bluehill ID companies and as well as follow-on acquisition of RockWest in April. Today, we operate as one company, Identive Group, with a greater scale, strong position in key growth markets and a clear focus on building the world's signature group in secure ID.
It will of course be an exaggeration to say that the integration and the one company is 100% complete. But I would in all honesty characterize the integration with the exception of our latest acquisition of Smartag to be truly substantially complete.
Early in 2010, we also put in place strong management team with significant experience in this business. We have added during the year several additional people that offered a significant added depth and experience in ID and the security industry.
Our full-year revenues for 2010 come at $84.8 million, more than double the sales levels of 2009. Both of course are the result of acquisitions as well as organic growth.
While we have cut major costs out of the organization and exited some activity which we did not believe to be attractive, we still generated organic growth of about 9%. So while integrating, doubling the size, cutting the cost, we were still able to deliver organic growth.
Back in March of 2010, we had put a target of reducing our overhead by $4.5 million during 2010. In fact, we exceeded this and have actually reduced our overhead by approximately $5.3 million in 2010.
On the market side, we see good momentum across our business globally. We achieved important significant wins with various US governments such as the Departments of Justice, Treasury and State; significant work also in the US healthcare sector.
And of course you are aware of the SCM and Microsystems card reader and Multicard fulfillment and software work where we were selected for the German electronic ID program, receiving approximately $12 million in contracts. In addition, during the year, Holland's largest financial institution or bank, Rabobank, selected Multicard for our cashless payment systems, providing near field communication or NFC stickers for mobile phones as well as personalization fulfillment, key management and software services. These wins and many other wins in Japan, China, United Arab Emirates and across the globe helped us and will help us drive revenues and further strengthen our position in key markets.
Our RFID transponder business had growth of 45% year on year and that was before the acquisition of Smartag. We are seeing so far in 2011 continued strong growth in this area.
While we do still have our fair share of areas of poor performance where we still need to work harder and improve, our utilization of working capital continues to be very poor. You will see that as we grow sales, we are also growing capital at an almost one-to-one ratio, eating up inventory and not managing our payables.
Our supply chain is too long. So, part of our overall management resources that we have added is Brent Archer, our new VP of Operations and Supply Chain. Brent has worked with several of us on the management team in the past. His knowledge of the RFID business and his experience in the industry is phenomenal, so we are looking forward to improvement in this area.
In 2010 we also had some growing pains in our RFID manufacturer area and as you can imagine, with the sort of growth we had, 45%, the inefficiency [and scrap] were not as we would have liked them to be, so that we have had problems with inefficiency [in scrap]. These were particularly acute in Q3, Q4 got better but we're not completely out of the woods yet.
Silicon shortages continue to cost us business with significant deferrals of salesforce in Japan, Australia and also in Europe. And finally while we have reduced our overhead quite a bit, our G&A still remains very high as a percentage of sales.
In summary, in our first year as Identive Group, we have established the Company as an innovative leader in secure ID, a serious company with an effective business model that is looking to deliver results today and not promising on great results in the future. So I will at this point in time turn over to Melvin, Melvin Denton-Thompson, our CFO, who will take you through the results for the quarter and for the year. Melvin?
Melvin Denton-Thompson - CFO
Thank you very much, Ayman. In the following, I will talk about the 2010 financials, compared with both actuals for the prior year and the pro forma numbers for the prior year to show the impact of the acquisitions on the financials.
The full-year 2010 revenues of $84.8 million represents 105% growth over the 2009 actuals and 9% growth over the 2009 performance, reflecting the net organic growth. Full-year gross profit margin was 48% compared to 52% in the prior year. The reduction reflects the impact of product mix particularly from the acquisitions.
However, the gross margin percentage increased from 45% reflected in the pro forma numbers. Total overheads for the year were higher than prior year due to the acquisition which were $8.3 million lower than the pro forma total overhead, reflecting the effect of the cost reduction program initiated in 2010 and the full-year effect of actions taken prior to that.
The results of an adjusted EBITDA positive of $1.1 million for the full year which was an $8.6 million improvement over the adjusted EBITDA in the prior year and an improvement of $13.9 million over the pro forma 2009 adjusted EBITDA. Charts on the next slide show the Q4 and full-year revenue and gross margin development.
Q4 growth was 134% over prior year and 21% over the pro forma numbers including acquisitions. Q4 margins at 46% were relatively stable compared to the prior year which showed an increase from 42% in the pro forma numbers due to the product and business mix.
On the next slide, we show the total overhead movement in Q4 and full year compared to the revenue development. While Q4 revenues grew by 134% over prior year, the overheads increased only marginally from $9.1 million to $10 million.
Overheads reduced from 13.4 in the pro forma numbers for Q4 2009. For the full year, compared to the 2009 pro formas, the overheads reduced by 17% with sales increasing by 9%. The overheads were $40 million compared to pro forma overheads of $48.2 million.
Next slide shows the improvement in the adjusted EBITDA for both Q4 and the full year, the improvements being driven both by the sales growth and the improvements in overheads. The adjusted EBITDA for Q4 was $2.9 million positive compared to negative $3.7 million in the same period in 2009 and compared to negative $3.9 million in the Q4 2009 pro formas.
For the full year the adjusted EBITDA was $1.1 million positive showing an $8.6 million improvement over the 2009 numbers and a $13.9 million improvement over the 2009 pro formas. Moving on to the reconciling items between the adjusted EBITDA and the GAAP loss from continuing operations before taxes, depreciation and amortization is principally amortization of intangibles arising from acquisitions and totaled $4.7 million in the year.
Equity-based compensation was at a similar level to the 2009 pro forma numbers at $2.5 million. Post-acquisition and reorganization costs reduced substantially from $5.1 million in the 2009 pro forma numbers to $2.3 million in 2010.
Acquisition costs also reduced substantially from the 2009 pro forma numbers of $5.6 million down to $1.5 million in 2010. The resulting loss from continuing operations was reduced from $16.1 million in 2009 to $10.7 million in 2010. The loss from continuing operations before income taxes in the 2009 pro forma financials was $32 million.
Let's move on to the balance sheet. Cash at the year-end was $10.8 million compared to $6.2 million at the end of Q3. The increase results from the net proceeds from the private placement completed in November and from income from operations offset by the costs associated with the acquisition and funding of Smartag that Ayman has already referred to, and offset by the increase in working capital. While an increase in working capital is required to support the growth, as Ayman has already mentioned, we are focusing on working capital improvements around the Group.
Mortgage loans amounts payable increased due to a [low note] relating to the acquisition of Smartag which will be paid down over 13 months. And with that, I shall hand back to Ayman who will talk about the outlook for 2011.
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
Thank you, Melvin. We enter 2011 with a strong momentum. Our order book is at a record $22 million. Of this $22 million, $6.5 million is for the German citizen ID program, and we also see significant activity in ID projects around the world and in different countries.
We are well positioned in many other national ID programs, programs having already supplied first-generation products for different markets from Japan, to Spain and many other countries. In the US market and with the various government mandates, we have already demonstrated that we are well positioned for additional business as more agencies of the US government upgrade their systems to comply with the requirements of HSPD 5 and 12, that's Homeland Security Presidential Directives number 5 and 12 and the Federal Information Processing Standards of FIPs.
All of these standards require the secure upgrade of government employee credentials to ensure the use of -- the secure use of one credential for access to physical buildings as well as IT systems and networks. We are also seeing private industries such as utilities and other critical infrastructure adopting very similar approach to the government and we're beginning to see inquiries and activities in this area.
We are seeing new opportunities with student ID and healthcare applications for access control, security systems and patient ID. We are also expanding our R&D activity to take advantage of several market opportunities that we see, and we are adding sales presence and sales people and expanding resources in France, UK, Latin America, Singapore and India as well as our existing primary markets.
In Asia Pacific and in Europe, we are seeing important developments in the area of mobile ID. The market excitement about the adoption of the NFC or the near field communication technology with mobile phones has been very, very active. In the markets there's been nonstop activity in this area.
The new devices will turn mobile phones essentially into an electronic ID for the masses. So we're expecting this market to develop very rapidly and we expect a great deal of change in the way and the form of the development to occur as is normal in a new innovative, high-tech application for the consumer market.
Our competence across the whole of the value chain of RFID and secure ID puts us in a good position to participate in this area. We are already active with several telcos, handset manufacturers, financial industry, the banks or credit cards as well as a variety of retailers. So this is an area that we are particularly excited about in 2011 and beyond.
With this, I'll move onto our projections for 2011. We are projecting our revenues for 2011 to be in the range of $100 million to $110 million with gross margins between 48 and 50%. We are projecting an increase in our overhead to between $43.5 million and $45.5 million, and we're projecting an adjusted EBITDA of between $5 million and $7.5 million.
And with that, I would like to really turn the call back to the operator and open it for any questions. Thank you.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Ilya Grozovsky, Morgan Joseph.
Ilya Grozovsky - Analyst
So I had a couple of brief questions. You guys had mentioned that the backlog going into 2011 stood at about $22 million. What was the backlog going into the fourth quarter?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
I think we'll have to look into that because of the revenue recognition. I can tell you that my recollection is that the back -- I remember the backlog into Q1 was about $12 million or so, but I will have to -- while we're here, we'll have to see if somebody can calculate the revision from the Q3 with the restatement of the revenue.
Ilya Grozovsky - Analyst
Okay, and now on the restatement, so how did this -- can you just take me through how this sort of came about? Was it the auditors that came to you and told you that you need to move the revenues around or did you do it on your own? Or sort of what's the mechanics there?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
It's really with the year-end process as you are reviewing things and a bit deeper, and we had more shipments to the same magazine. And going through the contract in detail, we determined that our obligation -- it was a partnership agreement. Our obligation did not simply fans by doing our bit and delivering it to the magazine. It actually ended by the magazine delivering to the subscribers.
So that's why we decided the appropriate thing to comply with our own standards and to comply with the accounting standards was to restate it which also affected our revenue in Q4 because we had some more deliveries in Q4 that we did not recognize that will be recognized when they are delivered in Q1 or Q2 of this year.
Ilya Grozovsky - Analyst
You mean just based on the same principles?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
Exactly, exactly.
Ilya Grozovsky - Analyst
So then looking back into the third quarter where the revenues came out of, obviously it was a flat sequential quarter. What -- obviously this is a fourth-quarter call, but given the numbers moving around a little bit, what is your reflections then on how that quarter shaped up?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
Well, it is -- I think we are reasonably happy with both Q3 and Q4 in combination. If you look at the second half of the year as one unit, one unit against the second half of last year or against the first half of the year, so it is -- we don't see that as an issue really.
So overall, we're pretty comfortable with the development of the business. And if you recall in Q3, the shortage of semiconductors was much more acute than it is now, so it was really a matter of deciding which ones to ship. So we're not particularly worried about the sequential, and our projection is that the seasonality of the business has somewhat steadied, but Q3 still remains one of the quarters that we will look at with a fair degree of strength.
Ilya Grozovsky - Analyst
Okay, and you've obviously given guidance for the full year for 2011. What does the March quarter look like? We're obviously almost two-thirds of the way done here. Is there any seasonality or should we look for a sequential increase in the March quarter?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
I think we don't want to get into giving quarterly guidance, Ilya, but I think generally we expect the second half to be stronger. So our general expectation is the second half of the year is stronger.
Normally we would expect Q1 to be weaker. But so far it looks pretty good. I would be surprised if we have Q1 topping Q4. But it is looking reasonably good.
Ilya Grozovsky - Analyst
Okay, great. Then just the last question. On your guidance for 2011, the gross margin 48 to 50, is that a GAAP number or is that a non-GAAP number?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
No, that is a non-GAAP number. That number is net of amortization, overhead allocations and equity-based compensation. Equity base is not very much and it is really the big number in it is the amortization because with the US GAAP amortization, we are often amortizing various engineering skills and know-how and all kinds of things into the gross margin and it makes it a little bit harder for a look at the trends. So we strip out really all the things that make it difficult for us to be able to look at the business on an ongoing basis.
Ilya Grozovsky - Analyst
Okay, thank you very much.
Operator
(inaudible) Brothers.
Unidentified Participant
Some questions regarding your fiscal year 2010 results. Let's start maybe with the sales. Maybe I missed that during the call. Can you provide us with a better feeling what was from the sales organic and what was due to acquisitions?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
Yes, I think -- good afternoon. I think if you look at one of the slides, what we have tried to do is we have tried to give you the actual statutory reporting of last year, and then we've taken a very prudent approach to the pro forma.
So in the pro forma figures, we have included all the acquisitions for the respective periods. So you are looking at apples to apples, oranges to oranges. And I believe -- just one second here. Melvin, do you have that Q -- for the Q and for (multiple speakers)
Melvin Denton-Thompson - CFO
The full year was 9% organic growth.
Unidentified Participant
9% full year?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
9% full year, yes.
Unidentified Participant
The rest coming from acquisitions, okay. I mean I know that with GAAP and non-GAAP, you talked about that many times, but I'm trying to understand the cost platform which you have now. I mean obviously when you acquire a company, then your cost platform changes, so it's difficult for an external person to really get here a better feeling.
But what can we assume for a cost platform OpEx run rate going forward? We have now in Q4 I think something more than $12 million. So it's a reasonable number for Q1 as well? Or were they are too many one-offs? What can be assumed here?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
I think if you look at the guidance we have given, because our guidance is based on -- for the full year is 43.5 to 45.5. There's obviously a part of it that is a variable that is volume dependent. But if you look -- so that's really -- the sort of 44 to 46% of revenues as overheads net of amortization and all the other adjustments that we make.
Unidentified Participant
Sorry for interrupting, Ayman. But it's of course -- I mean for me it's difficult to see the amortization and all the non-GAAP positions.
But like taking really the cost like you have to report on a GAAP basis, what can we assume for OpEx run rate? This $12.3 million I think in fourth quarter, is it a reasonable number going forward or not? I mean like the way you report the numbers?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
I'm not sure I fully understand the question. I think the 12.3 was for Q4 at fairly high level of sales. If you annualize the Q4 alone, you'll end up with a number that's higher than our guidance for the year.
Melvin Denton-Thompson - CFO
I think that includes the post-acquisition and acquisition cost items I guess which vary considerably depending on the activity that we have going forward.
Unidentified Participant
But will be like taking the business at this level, you know? And without acquisitions, what is a reasonable number for your cost platform per quarter now?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
Well, that's an easy question to answer because if you look at the guidance we have provided -- now I know that this guidance is non-GAAP. But if you go from there and you take a look at the amortization, you will have to make some slight adjustment before the amortization because the amortization for 2010 would have not included the full year of the acquisitions we made during the year.
So you have to make that adjustment which would be an additional adjustment. If you are assuming that we're not making any additional acquisition and therefore no additional integration, then you will obviously have to take that away.
We are not prepared to make that assumption and we're not prepared to give that guidance because we fully plan to continue to be active in the consolidation of the industry. So for me now or for us now to attempt to tell you how much we're going to pay and how much it will cost us to make an acquisition in May or June or August of 2011 and what the audit costs and the legal costs would be and what would the post-acquisition costs would be and what the resulting amortization from that acquisition during the year would be would be really just a completely academic and theoretical exercise that has zero chance of materializing. So we will end up looking back and thinking our -- the analysts who were covering us looking equally bad.
Unidentified Participant
Yes, but -- yes, it's fair enough, I understand your point. But I think for the quarters, what we had now or in 2010 or Q4, so you have the numbers and it would be not difficult to give the numbers. But that's something different.
Okay, further questions. Regarding the German EID, what are here the lead times? We have seen I think in Q4 around 1.3 million IDs issued by the government or the officials. What are the lead times which you have here? I mean 6 million are expected for 2011 I think, so I'm just trying to get an understanding of the lead times where we stay in there.
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
As you know, what we are doing is we are doing the secure reader kits which enable the interface between the actual credentials and whichever application they are being used for be it in a computer interface application or other application. So, our part of it, we are expecting that the $13 million or $12 million to $13 million contract we received last year will be shipped by the end of Q3 this year, that we are expecting to recognize the revenue by the end of Q3 2011. In terms of when the various actual credentials are being issued, our counterparts on that would be probably NXP or somebody else that you'll need to ask when they are shipping that.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, then you mentioned similar projects in other European countries; Spain, for example. Can you give here more details of what is the current stage with these programs?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
Sure, I can try. There are various national ID projects around the world. Many of them have no smart card technology at all. Some have contact smart cards. some are coming up with the next generation contact smart card. Some are coming up with a next generation contactless or dual interface.
We are active in many different projects and in many different countries. We are aware of additional and new upgrades in Japan for example where we are involved with the ID readers used for example for Japanese citizens to get a discount when they are filing their tax returns.
So, these things are really coming out from the different governments and different -- following their own logic and their own schedule. Within Germany itself, if you look at the four contracts that we have supplied again -- or that we have been awarded, these contracts do not necessarily cover the whole of Germany yet.
This is sort of a first run-through, and many cases are experimental cases. So there may very well be like our contact for the [North Rhineland Westphalia], that is a regional contract.
There might be other regions that want to do similar things. So it is really different countries and different governments are working to their schedule. And quite often we're also not at liberty at discussing things until we have been permitted to do so.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, then some further short questions. Your transponder business, impressive pickup here. But what is the utilization rate? And currently what you have here, you have some shortage problems in the past. What is the current stage here and maybe what are the capacities you currently have?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
The shortages have not -- in Q4 have not affected our transponder business as much as they have affected our other businesses, the reader business and in some cases Multicard business in Australia. And I would say that the slippage was somewhere between $800,000 to $2 million, in that area.
In terms of the capacity, we have expected that -- our expectation on the capacity is about $150 million. But this number varies quite a bit based on the kind of IC and the form factor.
Also very important thing that we look at is the turnover time. So if you have -- if you're making 10 million of something, we're much more efficient than if you're making 20 of 0.5 million of something.
So the turnover can be -- the changeover from one product to another can affect our capacity. But I would characterize our capacity right now to to be in the 125 million to 250 million range between Smartag and TagStar at our factories in Singapore and Germany. Have I answered the question?
Unidentified Participant
Yes, great. Then you mentioned SmartTrack, that they will contribute positively in 2011. What can we expect here? I know you don't -- maybe you will not disclose the numbers but what would be the positive effect?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
Well first of all, SmartTrack is a different company. It's Smartag -- we've -- that is a part of Identive, not SmartTrack.
Unidentified Participant
I know SmartTrack, I am covering SmartTrack, don't worry.
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
We are expecting a positive contribution. We have already started using the production capacity in Singapore to help with the shortage of capacity in Germany. But I'm not going to be able to break out for you that number.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, last question, acquisitions, Ayman. What kind of [fueled] maybe in transponder business or what can we expect here?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
I think if you -- we generally view that our core technology area of transponders and readers that we are really where we want to be. So we're not -- there might be some acquisition activity in that area to add capacity possibly, to sort of tweak some nice features in a product.
But in the core ID area, we feel really good about our strengths and our position. Where you would see us looking at any acquisitions is in terms of geographic coverage and in terms of certain vertical markets that we feel we don't have good enough access to. So it is really taking what we are doing now as a core technology and moving closer to our customer in -- either geographically or in a specific vertical.
Unidentified Participant
Great, thanks a lot and good job, gentlemen.
Operator
Nathan Townsend, Lincoln Vale.
Nathan Townsend - Analyst
Just a quick question. It's good see you both winning new project contracts and executing on the existing contracts, but can you give us some feel for recurring revenue?
Ayman Ashour - Chairman and CEO
Thank you. I think the recurring revenue for us has two parts. There are two parts to the question, to this.
In our ID products and components segment, we have -- you would not expect to see what is normally classified as recurring business. But we do have a fair amount of recurring revenue that is coming in from design-ins.
So if we have our chipsets or our products designed into an HP or a Lenovo computer or if we have them designed in as part of a specific pharmaceutical application, you generally continue to get their recurring business for that as you go forward. Then there is the recurring business in terms of professional services, software maintenance and the like in our other segment, the identity management solutions and services segment, and I would estimate that to probably be 20%. So our estimate -- and that's a soft estimate -- is between 25 and 30% of the total. But that is a soft estimate, Nathan.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the Q&A portion of our presentation. I would now like to turn the call back to over to Miss Darby Dye.
Darby Dye - IR
Thank you, thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to updating you again at the end of our our first quarter and thank you very much. Bye bye.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation you may disconnect and have a great day.